Jakarta Weekend

Since I arrived in Jakarta, I've been pretty underwhelmed. I'm not sure why I didn't ask more questions or prepare better (oh wait, I was super busy until the day before I left!) but I arrived feeling really unprepared to be here. I was mentally prepared for Mali, or another West African country, and soon realized that I couldn't be the farthest away from Mali. The neighborhood that I'm living and working, Kemang, is Western-central. The best supermarkets are here and all of the Western amenities - yoga studios, fast food, a Pizza Hut that looks nicer than most American restaurants, you name it. Being secluded to Kemang, I started to think that all of Jakarta was like this, and even worse that all of Indonesia was like this. Luckily, this weekend Isti and her husband Agum took me out and about.

Agung and Isti at dinner

Saturday we went to Pondok Indah Mall, which I swear is the nicest mall I've ever been to. We really came here to browse since everything was so expensive. There were two huge department stores and others like Marks and Spencer, Espirit, Mango, Zara, and too many others to remember. This mall was really two malls, connected by a walking bridge (presumably crossing the busy street below) and was super crowded as well. After going here, I pretty much hated Jakarta and just wanted to get out of town. It's nice to have the option of going to a mall - there are no malls, and nothing even comparable to a mall in Mali - but consumerism has really taken over here.

Saturday's excursion wasn't planned, Isti just showed up to pick me up. Sunday, however, we had planned to go shopping after we went to a wedding. When I found out we were going to a wedding, I was super excited (since I still haven't been to any weddings as an adult except for my own) and it was an Indonesia wedding! After Isti and Agum picked me up, we started driving to East Jakarta and I finally got outside of Kemang. Jakarta is certainly more developed than I'm used to, with highways and tolls and the like, but it was great to see fruit vendors lining the streets at the big bus station, people selling their goods while weaving in an out of traffic, and driving through what I can only compare to downtown Bamako and Grande Marche area. I felt at home and immediately reconnected to this foreign place that I was starting to dislike. As a wedding guest, we arrived to greet and eat and then leave. Of course I snapped a shot of the lovely bride and groom.

Chandra and Indiri - Indiri is Isti's cousin from her father's side.

After the wedding outting, we drove through Central Jakarta to South Jakarta to the Ambassador Mall and then Plaza Semanggi for dinner. Since Jakarta has a population of almost 12 million, you can imagine the insanity of traffic and parking. At the Ambassador Mall, we entered the parking lot, but just kept driving until the 5th level (there were no options for parking below that) and excited to start looking. The cars were packed in and some shoppers even left their cars in neutral so the parking attendants could move them, in a straight line of course, if necessary. I think this mall had 7 or 8 levels and the stores weren't as glamorous as the previous day, but much more in our budget. Since a lot of the clothing industry invests in South/Southeast Asian countries for their manufacturing, this mall had "seconds" from stores like Banana Republic, H&M and Zara, but everything was super tiny (probably why they were seconds).

View of South Jakarta, from either the 5th or 6th level of parking at Ambassador Mall.

View of South Jakarta from Plaza Semanggi at dusk.

It was nice to finally see a bit more of Jakarta than I had seen in the previous week, and it gave me hope that our trips out to the districts will be fruitful and full of lots of work. I think Jakarta is a nice city to come to after 2 months in the field (much the same way I felt about Bamako), but right now it just feels a little bit too much like America to me.

Midwives

Though it hasn't even been one week in Jakarta, it feels like it's been two! I went to work the day after I arrived and met my translator, Ibu Isti along with some of my co-workers. Isti is a bidan, or midwife, who works her family's private clinic. She's also a former member of Indonesia's national women's basketball team member, and translator extraordinaire. Isti went to medical school but decided to become a midwife instead.

Midwifery in Indonesia is really widespread, and in fact there are too many midwives. Previously, the midwifery schools had better standards, but they've popped up everywhere making it very easy, and pretty inexpensive to get a certificate/degree. Midwifery jobs are pretty easy to come by, and midwives can either work independently as village midwives, work at government-run clinics and hospitals, or work privately in their own, or others', clinics. Access to medical care is different in Jakarta, but in the rural areas, many women still give birth at home with traditional birth attendants (women with no formal education) and consequently the maternal mortality rate (MMR) is still very high for Asian countries. More and more, women are using midwives, private clinics or government-run clinics, but the numbers are still dismally low. In January of this year, the government created an free insurance scheme called jampersal that makes it free for women to go to both public and private facilities to give birth. Once the facility claims the birth, they government reimburses them. The problem is that many women still don't know about this free service and so they aren't using it. I hope that we can educate women about it and encourage them to go to facilities instead of staying at home.

Not surprising, the cost of giving birth is much lower than in the US. But the prices vary depending on if you stay at home with a TBA or with a midwife, if you go to a public facility or to a private facility. The cost can range from 250,000 rupiah (RP) to 1,000,000 RP (approximately $27 to $120). One of the problems with jampersal is that the government will only reimburse 350,000 RP so the private clinics that normally earn 750,000 for one birth are having a difficult time and are trying to discourage the use of jampersal in their clinics.

Isti and I are working on a survey to ask women about their perceptions of giving birth in a facility. We are going to investigate the different reasons (cost, transportation, cultural values, etc) that influence women's decisions. Few surveys have been conducted about women's perceptions of health care, but we found a few that helped us to create the survey.

We're now in the final stages of creating the survey and we'll meet to discuss the content and to decide which districts we're going to visit to deliver the survey. The MCHIP project works in three districts in Indonesia: Bireun in Aceh, Kutai Timor in Kalimantan and Serang in Java. The map below isn't very detailed, but Bireun is just east of Banda Aceh, Kutai Timor is north of Samarinda and Serang is due West of Jakarta near the dot for Merak.

Hopefully we'll know our destinations and schedule today or tomorrow and can plan our interview schedule. Isti has worked as a translator with three other midwife volunteers here and I'm really looking forward to working with her and learning from her.

Welcome to America.....er, Jakarta

As the jetlag has finally worn off and I have feeling in my lower limbs again, it's time to welcome you all to America, er Jakarta, Indonesia. The introduction says it all, I think, but suffice it to say that things aren't that different from a big city in the US here - Probably more NY or LA, as opposed to DC or Philadelphia. I arrived pretty late on Wednesday night and got through customs, immigration and baggage claim with no problem. I exchanged some money and headed to the taxi stand where instead of getting the nice black Mercedes to take me to me to town, I essentially wound up in the back of someone's minivan praying the entire 50 minute drive that I was going to arrive at my destination, not at a brothel. Talking to the taxi driver and coordinator was my first sign that I was in a foreign land. I'm pretty sure I slipped into negotiating in Bambara when he told me the price was 280,000 Rupiah (about $30, but it sounded like WAY more in my head). So we set off to Kemang, the neighborhood/district of Jakarta where I'm staying. This big city - of which only a fraction I actually saw - introduced me to brand new cars (including the bright green Mazda 2!), Harley Davidson, Starbucks galore, and huge shopping malls touting Burberry, Gucci and the likes. The whole time I'm thinking, "Okay, did I really get off the plane in Jakarta?" Once we arrived in Kemang, essentially the foreigner area of Jakarta, it really turned into little-America. KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut, and then some other random foreign restaurants like an Irish Pub, German Beer Garden and endless Dim Sum choices. Trying to take it all in, we eventually arrived at my abode and I couldn't have been happier. All I really needed was a horizontal sleeping surface and water to feel human again.

By way of where I'm staying - the Chief of Party (Director of the project, for those of you not familiar with "aid-speak") for the MCHIP Project, Anne, has graciously offered her guest room for my stay. Her family is sweet and her pool looks inviting, though the weather hasn't been too awesome yet.

All in all, my arrival was exactly what I would have expected a 12:00 AM after a 29 hour trip - interesting. I'm looking forward to exploring a bit more of the city and starting on work. More to come!